OhForAGreavsie

Did that poster mean the season or might he have been being literal when he said the 'year'.' i.e. a potential return for Zakaria from January time?

Agreed. In the right circumstances I'd consider this. Obviously, if it were a choice between Eden and Chris, you'd have to choose, and nurture, the future. Only if you were convinced that Eden was done however would you turn down the opportunity to add squad depth of Eden's quality.

The solution in CFC academy football was Reece at RCB in a three with Tariq at RWB. In an era when CFC produced a lot of outstanding development sides, that 2018 group was the pick of the bunch. They brushed aside a really top Arsenal side, including Saka, over two games in the Youth Cup Final, then went to an even better ManU team who played really well on the day but were also brushed aside. The only blemish on that quadruple winning season was failing to turn up for the Youth League Final and being easily beaten by a good Barcelona team. I'm not expecting ever to see a better CFC Youth side than that one.

Love that music. Love that film. (Who doesn't. )

Is that a smile on Kai's face? Glad there is photographic evidence.

Re the Champions League Team of The Week: You never really want to see your goalkeeper in that list but it's better than seeing the oppo's strikers in there I suppose. How does Kai's inclusion chime with all the comments last night about how badly he was playing?

If you think Jorginio's is bad you should see Chloe Kelly of Man City Women. You won't believe your eyes. Surely though style doesn't matter. Surely what counts is conversion rate. Everything else is fluff. It could be argued that style matters because it might make success more or less likely. How would we judge whether or not a style contributes to success? By looking at the conversion rate of course. Conversion rate, conversation rate, conversion rate. Nothing else counts.

You're on form tonight lads.

This made me burst out laughing.

Sadly this is true.

No you weren't. You were pointing out your assertions.

You're firm in your opinions and I find that a good thing but they are opinions all the same. Frank has his. You offer your opinions as if they are established fact but, if they were as clear cut as you feel them to be, why would Frank ignore them? It's his reputation, standing with the squad and with the club which is at steak. Why would he pick a weaker team when it is obvious that a stronger option is available? Like it or not, Frank has more information than all of us and he has a different opinion to you.

Oops, I think I must have quoted it from the post in which you quoted it instead of the original.

I've never heard a manager claim to be unfair. You can't cost the side a game if you're not selected. The proper judgement is not whether X, Y, or Z cost us a game. It is whether the manager was justified, all things considered, in making the choice that he did. All of our centre backs, bar Thiago, have been judged not good enough by at least some posters on here yet the manager has to pick someone for those positions. If you had been that manager some posters would now be second guessing your choices. Indeed, Frank has picked all of the CBs in question in various combinations and has been criticised for selecting each and every one of them. If all options are problematic there can be no perfect answers and certainly no easy ones.

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply before heading off. Yes, I've seen countless cases of poor decisions being made against sides of every stature. It's about the conclusions to be drawn from that evidence however. Personally, I have always dismissed the idea that there was anything other than error involved but Saturday's incident made me pause. It is very, very hard to see how an honest viewing of the VAR replays can have reached any conclusion other than to award a penalty. So, what's to be made of this? You have a very wide ranging list of culprits there. I'm not saying that I believe this because without actual evidence I don't believe anything, but an individual in the pay of a betting cabal is a circumstance we could all understand. Someone who has been got at, or who can't resist the money to be made is the kind of thing which we know happens. Even if we didn't know it, we could still imagine it. An individual sitting in front of a TV monitor making bent decisions, and being backed by another person higher up giving him cover does not come under my definition of powerful or corrupt however. It's just a criminal activity. On the other hand, The FA does come under that heading so, if true, its involvement would indeed be corrupt. I have to tell you though that I think accusations of their involvement should be filed under crackpot conspiracy theory. One problem with conspiracy theories is that they always imagine the conspirators to be way more competent than they could ever be in real life. A group of individuals might decide to line their pockets but for the FA to do so as an organisation would involve the knowledge of dozens if not hundreds of people. It would leak. It always does. Trump is a criminal backed by entire organs of the state which are complicit yet his crimes still get exposed. The FA's power by comparison is tin-pot. If they did this we'd know about it sooner rather than later. In any case, what does the FA as an organisation gain from this behaviour? Money? It would have to be huge amounts to justify the risks and how would they hide so much loot? Any attempt to hide it would have to involve something like fake sponsorships which are really funded by the betting rings. More people in the know, more money chains more certainty of eventual exposure. Until I see evidence, and supposition is not evidence of course, I will continue to dismiss these allegations. I think we all should.

To what purpose do you claim the system is corrupted? For whose benefit? In other words please identify the powerful who are to be protected in this case?

Some people will know that I am a long term believer when it comes to Reece. While I fully support anyone who wants to form and express an opinion on whatever evidence they find persuasive, I feel there have been some hasty pronouncements on both sides of the argument. A few good games don't prove much and nor do a few bad ones. It's way too soon for me to say definitively that Reece has begun to fulfil his promise, and too soon also for posts of the type I read a few moths ago which said, not good enough. Get rid, or words to that effect. We've seen both positive and negative evidence from Reece and that can only really mean that we need more information before reaching a definitive conclusion.

Calibrate your expectations. Temper your impatience.

I don't believe for one moment that the club is considering sacking Frank. Nor should they be.

I've only seen youtube videos of Camavinga but I've been unimpressed so far. I'm off to seek out more videos.

One of our German members told us some time ago that Zakaria would not be leaving Gladbach in the last window but could do next summer. I wonder if the 'placed' rumour is evidence that someone in his camp could be interested in trying to accelerate that to January? It must be said that German clubs tend to do what they say they'll do. You all may have better memories than me but I don't remember when last a German club said a player contracted to them would not leave in a window but he did anyway. Usually, if they say he stays, he stays. Whenever it is that this bloke is on the move, I hope we'll join the bidding.

Very encouraging.

This is exactly what I kept saying when I saw the goal. I didn't watch the game live. Was helping my daughter in her garden with the radio on. From the moment Southampton equalised I was completely fed up but when I saw the highlights later my mood jumped, Now I can't get the smile off my face. Wow indeed, just wow.

Seems a pretty transparent and almost routine contract renegotiating tactic.

To be fair, I can't remember the detail but I know that I always preferred Kagawa. Those were my peak Bundesliga watching years because I basically watched every Bremen game that didn't clash with a Chelsea game and got quite heavily into the league as a consequence. I may try to find some of my old posts to remind myself but it was probably that I felt he was more hype than substance, more flash than effectiveness. That's lacking in detail I know but it is a pretty common view I come to with footballers. For example, it's the view I had about Kennedy the first time I saw a youtube highlights video of his, and ditto about Benrahma of Brentford. Despite all the hype I am completely unsurprised that he's still in the Championship.